SANCTUARY II: A PETITION FOR SUSTAINABLE ARTIST HOUSING AND STUDIO SPACES IN NEWPORT
WHAT ARE WE ASKING FOR?
This petition will be brought to the City of Newport department of Planning and Economic Development. A synthesis of the survey (where private info is excluded) will be used in accessing gap-funding such as grants and private funds, will facilitate growing community partners and expertise, and will assist in advocating for the well-being of Newport’s artists into the future. We invite collaborating organizations to get involved in this work and to share data. Newport Art House is collecting signatures from community members who agree that there is need for a building/space for Newport Artists:
-Developed to include efficiency, studio, and 1 bedroom rental apartments at affordable rates (these sized units are rare in Newport, and prevent young people, regular-wage-people, and artists from living here long-term).
-That include ease of access to studio/making spaces, including an insulated music rehearsal space (no more noice-ordinance fines), space for messy making, performance rehearsal + gallery space.
-That allows for communal showcasing of resident artists works and ideas by our own terms of curation.
That is mixed-use. Community is created through the spontaneous meetings between artists and the public. Something like a publicly open cafe provides permeability.
We ask for one of Newport’s defunct schools, a space within the new “Innovation District,” or a home within an existing Newport City owned development. Why are artists so important to the economic and cultural success of Newport? Find the answer below the petition!
HOUSING:
STUDIOS + MESSY- AND SOUND- TOLERANT PRACTICE SPACES:
SHOWCASING AND MIXED-USE SPACE:
SIGN THE PETITION!
HELP US ADVOCATE, SIMPLY WITH YOUR SIGNATURE
SOME BACKGROUND ABOUT OUR PROJECT:
THE HISTORY OF "SANCTUARY II."
Sanctuary II is a tribute to one of the few “artist houses” of Newport. Sanctuary is that house that has had years of creatives circulating through it, all living happily, communally, and cheaply with like-minded people. It is these “houses,” of which Sanctuary is one, that have hosted some of the Newport’s greatest cultural events. We aspire to the caliber of community, radical vulnerability, and love of the original Sanctuary.
WHY ARTIST HOUSING? CONSIDER THIS:
Newport, like many communities, struggles with a difficult future. The community is aging, the population becoming more seasonal, and the cost of living more expensive. All of these issues are known to city officials, and are outlined in great detail in the Newport Comprehensive Plan (read it here). Artist residencies would directly and indirectly provide solutions to some of the projected hurdles facing the city and its leadership, so NOW IS THE TIME to let them know they have the community behind them when investing their energy in a sustainable direction: towards Newport’s embedded artist community.
UNSUSTAINABLE AGE DISTRIBUTION IN NEWPORT:
Newport struggles with population retention, and is qualified as “aging in place.” Newport’s year-round population is expected to decrease by 24% by 2040 to a total of 18,758 people (Newport Comprehensive Plan p. 1-5, 2017). While this is happening, the 55+ population is expected to increase by 17%, while the age-group under 55 is expected to decrease by 13% (Newport Comprehensive Plan p. 1-5, 2017). We love people of all ages, but even the city recognizes this as a huge problem.
What does it mean to have an aging population? Less young folks= less folks available to work the jobs available in a tourism economy. It also means fewer families settling in Newport long-term, a smaller tax-base since folks will be retired, and a smaller authentically attractive community of people to work towards building a sustainable and long-lived “creative economy” to begin with. Studies show that the “creative economy entrepreneur” every city wants to woo tends to favor authentically creative places with vibrant arts communities (Hube 2020).
As a community we have ourselves a chicken-or-the-egg conundrum: do you invest in the young creatives that are here to attract other young creatives, or do you wait until you have a retirement community to value your existing resources? It’s a no brainer! INVEST IN NEWPORT ARTISTS TODAY.
A SEASONAL TOURISM ECONOMY:
The City of Newport Comprehensive Plan states diversifying our town’s economy as a goal for the next decade. In the plan the Arts, Entertainment, Recreation, Accommodation, and Food Service sectors are all lumped together into one group and this group is our town’s second biggest employment sector! In 2014 this group represented 20.8% of employed Newport’s, second only to the education, health, and social services sector (Newport Comprehensive Plan, p. 4-3, 2017). Think of your friends who support the Arts, Entertainment etc. sector: Are they active artists and cultural administrators? Are they artists moonlighting as servers, hotel-attendants, sailors, and retail representatives? Are they generally the younger, or generally the less-affluent, and generally the more invested population of Newport? Do they tend to stay year round and are they investing in creating events and supporting local businesses in the off-season? The answer is YES to all above.
It’s time that the culture-makers of Newport get a fair-chance at being successful in this town. We keep developing our city to accommodate the housing needs of visitors to Newport (new hotels all around town, apartments being used more and more for AirBnb rentals, etc.). Now is the time to invest in the population that supports the year-round economy with their sweat equity.
NOT EVERYONE WORKING IN THE SEASONAL TOURISM ECONOMY IS AN ARTIST HOWEVER, RIGHT?
It’s true that not everyone who works in the sector above identifies as an artist. But consider this: who out of all the folx who work in the tourism industry during Newport summer ends up staying in town throughout the winter? By definition our seasonal economy requires those who work in the summer tourism economy to create alternative revenue sources in the winter. A majority of these folks are artists, creatives, and sole-proprietors. Identifying as an artist and working another job is called moonlighting and is especially common amongst emerging artists. Newport’s winter economy is supported by the moonlighting artist in the summer, and the artists risk-tolerance and love for the Newport community in the winter. Think this is a stretch? Consider that artists are not economically tied to Newport, with businesses that allow them to practice regionally, allowing them to stay the off-season. Consider that most Newport businesses that remain open through the winter depend heavily on musicians and artists to create programming in their spaces, attracting the art appreciator.
Does the arts community seem to be the source for not only creative ways to address the City of Newport’s hurdles, but also the source for a solution to our seasonal economy? To us it does!
INVESTING IN A YEAR-ROUND ECONOMY: ARTISTS MADE AND MAKE THIS CITY
How did we get stuck with a summer economy anyway? Marketing. When the first cottages in the Kay-Katherine historic district were built, they were built for summer-tourists from the south (coming up to cool off). When the southerners stopped coming up after the Civil War, the artists from Boston found the old cottages to be wonderful artist studios (and cheap, too). They came to paint landscapes and revel in Newports beauty (New England Historical Society; Newport Historical Society). Then BAM, the architect- and landscape-artists put a trance on the world to come enjoy the community that the artists had created. We are simplifying the story off course, but it’s not far from the truth. ARTISTS MADE NEWPORT WHAT IT IS. You can tell by how our city looks and feels. It’s in the woodwork and in the wrought-iron fences. In the past, we marketed the Newport of our patrons: the summer cottage crowd. They paid us to build buildings, paint the city’s beauty, and to host elaborately curated art-parties on their grounds. Newport was made famous with its parties. These were made fantastic by the use of artists.
Artists are experts at marketing. If we think something is beautiful, we’ll will talk about it. If we think it’s cool, we’ll want all the amazing people in our lives to come experience it with us. Newport is a place that has laid in the hearts of artists always, and this fact has shaped it into what it is now, in 2020. Today we grapple with needing to market Newport’s other seasons. We need to do this because the economic distribution of Newport’s great houses no longer trickles down to the fifth-ward and Newport at large. These houses no longer employ an army of workers, and haven’t for a while. Thankfully, the artists are still here. So are the cultural institutions that endow our city’s off-season attractions. Why not use the arts community as a source for marketing the city’s winter appeal by writing an arts and cultural plan for the city? Why not create a center where people know they can come and experience the arts created by the great thinkers and feelers of TODAY? Why not ensure that the creatives that are bound to be the city’s best hope at tackling future challenges have a place to live that allows them to create art whenever they want to, and feel empowered and valued as the culture-, change- and future-makers that they are? We all know we can’t go sailing in the winter. But we can enjoy a play, dinner, and some live music on a rainy February night, but only if we have dancers, culinary artists, and musicians living and working in Newport.
THE NAH CAPITAL CAMPAIGN FOR SANCTUARY II
Thank you for signing the petition! If you’re willing and able to contribute to the Sanctuary II vision fiscally, we invite you to contribute to the Capital Campaign we have in motion for the project. Please make sure you check the “Restricted to the NAH Sanctuary II Artist Housingand Studios Complex Capital Campaign” button so we may direct your donation towards the project!
